The Stranger's Child Part 35

But she gave a rather earthy chuckle at this. 'He's not a bad person, he wouldn't hurt a fly, or even a flea probably, but he's totally impractical. I mean look at this house! It's a miracle I haven't tripped over something and broken my leg; or my wrist; or my neck!'

'Does she live locally?'

'Thank G.o.d, no she lives in Norway.'

'Oh, I see . . .'

'Birgit. She's a pen-pal, didn't he tell you that?'

'Well, Norway's a long way away.'

'That's not what Birgit thinks. Well, she's got designs on him.'

'Do you think?'

Daphne was quietly candid. 'She wants to be the next Lady Valance. Ah, tea, Wilfie, how splendid!'

'Coffee, you said, Mummy.' She took it cautiously from the tray. 'Shall I go over to Smiths' for those things, then?'

'No, no,' she said, 'stay and talk with us it will be more fun for Mr Bryant, and you can help me out I forget so much!'

'Do call me Paul,' said Paul, with a glare of a smile at Wilfrid if he stayed it was certain Daphne would say nothing remotely interesting; he needed to be sent off on some sort of errand, but it was hard for Paul to know what.

'Well, of course I'm very interested in . . . Paul's great project.'

'Well, I know you are.' She sipped. 'Mm, delicious.'

Paul wondered how to cope with this. As always he had plans, which as often proved impossible to follow, and he had never been good at improvising: he clung to the discarded plan still when he could. He reminded her about Corley Court, and the times he'd visited the house, and how he was hoping to go again, he'd written to the Headmaster; but she couldn't be got to show any interest in the topic at all. 'Do you have much from those days, I wonder?' Paul said. Perhaps under the tablecloths and blankets in this room there were Valance heirlooms, little dusty things that Cecil might have owned and handled. The sense of the whole unexamined terrain of Cecil's life lying so close and yet so stubbornly out of view came over him at times in waves of dreamlike opportunity and bafflement.

'I didn't get much. I got the Raphael.'

'Oh, well . . . ?' Paul narrowed his eyes at her tone.

'You probably saw it in the loo.'

'Oh . . . oh, the picture of the man, do you mean . . . Goodness . . . Well, that must be worth quite a lot!' Paul hated his own sn.i.g.g.e.r he really had no idea.

'Well, so one had hoped. Unfortunately it's a copy, done when was it, Wilfie?'

'About 1840, I believe,' said Wilfrid, sportingly, but with a certain pride too.

'But you didn't know that at the time?'

'Well, I think . . . you know. And what else?' she gazed around as if against a bright glare.

'The ashtray,' said Wilfrid.

'Oh, yes I got the ashtray.' On the little table, beside her coffee cup, was a small silver bowl, with a scalloped edge. 'Have a look.' She lifted it and Paul got up to take it from her. It was just the sort of thing people used to keep in old suitcases in the strong-room at the bank, but tarnished and scratched by the protracted attentions of a heavy smoker.

'Look on the bottom,' said Wilfrid.

'Oh, I see . . .'

'I suppose Dudley had a sort of complex or something about property. He had that done to all sorts of valuable things, no doubt greatly reducing their value in the process.' In flowing letters, like some more conventional inscription stamped in the silver, were the words Stolen from Corley Court. He handed it back, with a blush at the naming of this particular vice.

'I was wondering about the picture behind you,' he said, to distract her. Somehow the nightmare of the room was yielding small treasures, consolation prizes for the talk that Daphne was trying to prevent from happening.

'Oh, well, that's Revel, of course,' said Daphne, as though now referring to an undisputed master.

'And it's obviously . . . you!' said Paul.

'I'm very attached to that drawing, aren't I, Wilfie.'

'Yes . . . you are,' Wilfrid agreed.

'So when was it done?' Paul got up, and edged around between the back of Daphne's chair and the standard-lamp to have a closer look. It struck him that the Victorian 'thicket' of furniture and stuff at Corley had been recreated here by Daphne w.i.l.l.y-nilly. Perhaps clutter always won in the end.

'It's a very fine picture,' said Daphne. It showed a round-faced young woman with dark hair in bunches on either side of her head. A light scarf was tied loosely in the open neck of her blouse. She leant forward, lips parted, as if waiting for the punchline of a joke. It was done in what Paul thought was red chalk, and signed For Daphne RR April 1926. 'We both had the most appalling hangovers at the time, but I don't believe you can tell with either of us.'

Paul giggled, but didn't hazard a view. When he thought about the date, it began to seem significant. 'I'd like to see more of his pictures,' he said, sad to hear himself surrender to a further diversion from the subject of Cecil, but with a feeling she could still be brought back to it.

'Would you, really?' Daphne sounded surprised, but was ready to oblige. 'What have we got? Well, have a look at Revel's alb.u.ms, I suppose. You know where they are, Wilfie.'

'Yes . . . now then . . .' said Wilfrid, nodding his head from side to side as he fetched them out from a chest of drawers behind his chair. Paul began to suspect Wilfrid's years-long failure to tidy the house was really a cover for a highly personal but efficient system of his own. 'Well, there's this one anyway.' And Paul was shown, more hastily than he would have liked, a large black-covered sketchbook of Revel Ralph's; it was laid open across Daphne's knee, and Paul and Wilfrid flanked her, craning down politely while she peered from odd ingenious angles and quickly turned the pages, as if regretting showing them after all. There were pages of Georgian-looking houses, whether real or invented Paul had no idea, pretty but rather boring, which Wilfrid then said were designs for The School for Scandal; some sketches of another woman in a dark hat, which Daphne said were studies for a portrait of Lady somebody, 'a very trying woman'; and then a rapid and much more inspired-looking series of drawings, over ten or twelve pages, of a naked young man, lying, sitting, standing, in a range of ideal but natural-looking positions, everything about him wonderfully brought out, except his c.o.c.k and b.a.l.l.s which were consigned to the imagination by a swoop of the pencil, ostentatiously discreet, pretending it wasn't the point. Daphne seemed to sense Paul's interest 'What's that?' pus.h.i.+ng the book away so she could see it 'Oh, you remember him, Wilfie, the Scotch boy at Corley. Revel was awfully taken with him he did a lot of drawings of him I remember they became great friends.'

'I was too young to remember him,' said Wilfrid, and looking at Paul over Daphne's head, 'I was only seven when we . . . er, moved to London.'

Even so, Paul wondered whether Wilfrid wasn't abashed by looking at these sketches, all the bolder for being private things, the little studies of the Scotch boy's thighs, b.u.t.tocks and nipples, in the presence of his mother; and what on earth Daphne herself thought, having married a man who produced such work. 'I remember he came to several of our parties at the studio,' she said, as if in fact recommending her husband's roving eye. Paul thought for a moment she might be teasing him.

'These ought to be in a museum,' he said awkwardly.

'And soon I dare say they will be. But I like having them around, so for now I'm hanging on to them, thanks very much' and she shut the book halfway through as if to say she'd indulged him quite enough.

'Actually I wanted to ask if you have any pictures of "Two Acres"?' something told him it was cleverer to ask for pictures of the house than pictures of people: it sounded more disinterested, and no doubt both kinds of photo would be mounted in the same alb.u.m. Once more Wilfrid obliged. 'This was Granny Sawle's alb.u.m,' he said.

'It was a dear house,' said Daphne, again holding the alb.u.m down by her left knee and raising her eyebrows suspiciously. 'That's the view from the lane, isn't it, yes, that was the dining-room window, and there were the four cherry-trees in front of it, of course.'

'A cloud of snow at Eastertide!' said Paul (it wasn't Cecil's most original line).

'Aha!' said Wilfrid from the far side of the room.

'There you are . . .' said Daphne. 'And the rockery, look. Goodness, how it all comes back.'

'Well, I'm glad,' said Paul, with a frank laugh.

'Now who's that? Wilfie, is it Granny?'

'Oh . . .' said Paul. It was the stout old German woman again, that George had told him about, but of course he didn't know her name. Already Paul felt annoyed by her, a figure of no interest who kept demanding attention. He remembered George had said she was a great bore. She sat in light-absorbing black in a deckchair from which it was hard to see how she would ever get up.

'What?' said Wilfrid, coming over. 'I don't know who everyone is, I wasn't even born yet, remember? Oh, good grief no, no, that's not Granny. No, no.' He laughed breathily. 'Granny was a really a rather lovely woman, with lovely auburn hair.'

'Well, I wouldn't say it was auburn,' said Daphne. 'She was a dark blonde. She was very proud of her hair.' It probably wasn't something Daphne would say of herself. Paul looked to Wilfrid, and said, 'She was the German woman, wasn't she?'

'That's right . . .' said Wilfrid, already abstracted, leaning forward quickly to turn the page. 'I haven't seen these for a long time,' he said.

'I wonder what's become of the house,' said Daphne.

'It probably doesn't even exist any more, Mother,' said Wilfrid. It was one of those little moments when Paul found it in his power to inform and perhaps upset the person he had himself come to for information.

'Oh, it does, actually,' he said.

'You've seen it, I suppose, have you,' Daphne said, in an irritable tone.

Paul pursed his lips regretfully, 'Well, I'm not sure you'd recognize the old place.'

'Oh, really?' she said, lightly but grimly.

'Well, no you would,' said Paul, 'of course you would' and he thought, 'but you never will go there, you'll never see the place again.' He had a feeling she was blaming him already for the changes, the years of flats, the sold-off garden, blaming him for knowing what he knew and what she had hoped never to know.

'Actually don't tell me,' she said.

'Anyway, we've got the poem, haven't we,' said Wilfrid.

'Well, of course,' said Daphne, 'there's always the poem.'

There were no photos of Cecil in the alb.u.m, which since he'd only spent six nights of his life at 'Two Acres' was hardly surprising, but of course disappointing. Paul looked closely at George whenever he appeared, from sailor-suited six-year-old to boatered Cambridge man, and with less and less doubt that whatever warmth this cold fish had felt had been directed at other young men. He asked Daphne if she would let him reproduce two photos of the house and garden, and she said she didn't see why not, but she fidgeted until she was sure that Wilfrid had returned the alb.u.m to its hiding-place. When they were all sitting down again, Paul cleared his throat and looked at her more narrowly than before, and with a greater c.u.mulative sense that it didn't matter how he looked at her, she wasn't going to see him. He said airily, 'There's one thing-' just as Daphne, with a little chuckle, almost grinning, as if at some great mutual satisfaction, said, 'Well! I'm sorry to say that I've promised to be at my friend Caroline's by four o'clock, so alas we'll have to bring the meeting to a conclusion, with a vote of thanks to Wilfrid Valance for the refreshments!'

Paul's face reddened and stiffened, but he wasn't going to be outdone. He made a thing of nodding regretfully at his watch. 'Well, if I'm to catch the 5.10,' he said.

'Oh, well, there you are, perfect,' said Daphne smoothly.

It wasn't clear if Wilfrid would want to drive him again; Paul was ready to phone for a Cathedral. He stood up, and started putting the tape-recorder and his papers into his briefcase with as little discomfiture as possible, in fact with a few delaying and normalizing remarks. 'I'm so grateful to you,' he said.

'Well, I don't suppose I've been much help to you,' she said.

'You've been very kind!' said Paul, in a full embrace of untruth. He took out his copy of The Short Gallery: 'I wonder would you sign this for me?' it was the copy he had had for review. He hoped she was no longer up to reading the pencilled marginalia, even if she thought to look.

'What's that . . . ?'

'Oh, Paul wants you to sign your book for him, Mummy,' said Wilfrid, clearly pleased by the request.

'Oh, well, if you like' and after a scrabble for a biro and with an awkward squint at the t.i.tle page, Daphne wrote something, in her large loping hand Paul didn't look but it took him back in a complex moment to the night she had written down her address for him at Paddington, and then much further to the morning at Foxleigh long before when he'd seen her make out a cheque with a comic precautionary air of not knowing what she was doing. There was something about her writing, with its big squareish loops and above-normal scale, that seemed to show her to him as a girl, something unguarded and almost unaltered by time, the same swelling Ds and crook-like ps she would have signed in letters to Cecil Valance before the First World War, and that now she was signing for him. She closed the book and handed it back; then stood up too, with the uncertain look of having come through something without too much harm. He clipped his briefcase shut.

'Well! I'll be in touch,' he said. He wasn't at all sure he would ever see her again. 'And as I say, I'll let you know about the book-launch, whenever it happens. You have to be there!' She was completely impa.s.sive at this, and Paul moved forward with a quick amiable gasp and touched her upper arm she hadn't seen it coming: it was only after he'd planted the first kiss and was already committed to the second that her resistance showed, a little bewildered grunt and recoil, as if from the sheer scale of his misunderstanding.

FIVE.

The Old Companions

No one remembers you at all.

Mick Imlah, 'In Memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson'

1.

The woman sitting next to him said, 'I don't know if Julian's coming, do you?'

'I don't, I'm afraid . . .' said Rob.

'I believe they were great friends. I'm not sure I'd recognize him now.' She craned round. Her black hat had an inch of veil at the front, and a mauve silk flower over her right ear. No wedding-ring, but several other fine old rings, heirlooms perhaps, on other fingers. Her clothes were soft crumpled velvet and silk, black and deep red, stylish but not exactly fas.h.i.+onable. She smiled at him again, and he wasn't sure if she thought she knew him, or thought quite naturally that she didn't need to know him to speak to him. Her firm, clipped voice had a hint of mischief. 'I fear a number of these people are going to have to stand.' She looked round with satisfaction at the embarra.s.sed struggles of the latest arrivals, as they clambered along the rows, or sat down abruptly and as if they didn't mind on some impossible ledge or radiator; one old man had perched like a tennis umpire at the top of the library steps. It was still only ten to two, but events like this brought out a strange zeal in people. Rob had been lucky to find this seat, at the end of a row, but near the front. 'Did you go to the funeral?'

'I didn't, I'm afraid,' he said.

'Nor did I. Not a fan.'

'Oh . . .'

'Of funerals, I mean. I've reached the age where one finds, with sore dismay, that one goes to more funerals than parties.'

'I suppose you could say this was somewhere between the two . . .' He opened the folded order of events, on which nine readers and speakers were listed. Inevitably, out of emotion, inexperience or sheer self-importance, almost all of them would go on too long, and the glinting winegla.s.ses and shrouded buffet just visible at the far end of the library would not be reached till about four o'clock. The library itself was funereally splendid Rob gazed at the tiers of leather-bound books with the sceptical, secretive eye of a professional. A broad arc of chairs filled the s.p.a.ce and a low podium had been set up, with a lectern and a microphone. The servants, in their black jackets, were growing fl.u.s.tered, more chairs were brought in. An event like this must be a challenge to the routine of a club, the automatic deference due to a deceased member stretched a little thinner over this very mixed crowd. A couple of youngsters had been made to put on ties, but one group of men in leather were too far outside the dress-code for any such remedial action and had been let in unchallenged. The only other man without a tie was a lilac-vested bishop.

From his seat Rob had a view along the front row in profile, unmistakably members of the family, as well as people who were due to speak: he recognized Sarah Barfoot, Nigel Dupont and Desmond, Peter's husband. Rob had had a fling with Desmond himself, ten or twelve years ago, and looked at him now with that eerie awareness of the unforeseen that lurks beneath the rea.s.surances of any reunion. The other readers could be identified perhaps from the list. Dr James Brooke he didn't know at all. At the far end was a man of about sixty, with a long nose and gla.s.ses on a string, looking over the typed sheets he was going to read from. He seemed somehow outside the nervous but supportive mood of the rest of the team, his own nerves perhaps concealed behind his frown and the sudden impatient glare he turned on the audience behind him; then he saw someone he knew, and gave a curt but humorous nod. Rob thought this must be Paul Bryant, the biographer.

Rob's neighbour said, 'How old was he?' getting out her reading gla.s.ses.

He looked at the front of the card with its small black-and-white photo and the words 'PETER ROWE 9 OCTOBER 19458 JUNE 2008 A CELEBRATION'. 'Um sixty-two.' The photo was more typical than flattering, Peter at a party, making a point, with a gla.s.s of wine in his hand. At these memorials great fondness was often shown for the foibles of the deceased. Rob found it brought back immediately the sound of Peter's voice, plummy, funny, carrying a sound which Peter himself had been very fond of.